Exiting the Stage, Safety Harbor Florida, 5 January 2019

The customary retirement age for faculty at the National University of Singapore is about 70 years old.  However shortly after celebrating my 79^thbirthday, I received an offer from the Residential 4 College Master to renew my contract for one or more additional years.  This was a remarkable offer. I had little doubt that if I accepted, I would be able to satisfy the requirements for a peer review of my teaching that university regulations required. 

As I pondered my decision, words of wisdom from my mother came to mind (for her,  aphorisms were a frequently employed parenting tool) “It’s better to leave the stage, while the audience is still applauding.”  

In responding to the Master’s offer, I recalled that when I first learned about the RC4 mission, educating “Systems Citizens,” using System Dynamics Modeling as a foundation, I said I would gladly work for free. This would not be necessary, he responded.  This offer had, in 2014-15 morphed in a joint Visiting Professorship with the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (where I was already teaching) coupled with an appointment as one of the College’s “Resident Fellows” with direct the responsibility for about 100 students in residence. I offered to stay on as “Modeler in Residence,” with flexible schedule, again working without compensation.  My personal goals were to reinvigorate my System Dynamics modeling practice, to move forward with a research agenda emphasizing the envisioning of sustainable development and to spend more time with my family and the diminishing number of old friends who still remained alive. 

In response, the Master offered me the option of remaining for a year as a full time Resident Fellow, making myself available as mentor to students and faculty colleagues and offering an informal weekly colloquium in my apartment to a small group of highly able students who were extending the normal two-year Residential College term for study for a third year.

This kind offer ushered in one of the most rewarding years of my professional life, because of the opportunities it gave me to connect with students informally, without the obligations of marking and assessing. There were also opportunities for speaking and writing, though my research productivity was less and I had hoped for.  As the academic year drew to a close and I made plans to return to the United States, I made a special effort to connect with the friends and mentors who had made such a difference in my life over the preceding eight years.  Now the time has come, with my writings, to give thanks to the students, friends and colleagues in Singapore who have given me so much. Their gifts can never be fully repaid; however, I must do my best.